In a recent Black Belt grading, eight students from Jamie Woodland’s Black Belt Academy, in Radstock, made the journey to Coventry to test for their belts in front of World and European Champion, Master Mark Junday.

Held over two weekends, the students were required to complete a tough fitness test and write a martial arts based essay to earn the right to be invited back to take the technical part of the exam.

All eight students made it through, albeit with a lot of sweat, determination and some sore muscles and returned the following weekend to demonstrate everything they have been training and learning over many years at the club. All aspects of martial arts were to be shown, including punch, kick and block combinations, patterns and set moves, sparring, self-defence and weapons demonstrations.

As a testament to all the hard work each student had put in, they all achieved the grade with Zea Masterton, Ross Tanner, Joseph Cooper, Jake Gullick, Jamie Church and Jason Carver promoted to Black Belt and Sebastien Jones and Lewis Baber promoted to Second Dan. On the same day, club instructor, Jamie Woodland, was also promoted to 5th Degree Black Belt. Jamie says: “Every one of the students is very dedicated, disciplined and hardworking and all really stepped up their training a long time before the test in order to ensure they passed. Such is the ethos at the club, nothing is given and hard work and a great team spirit will always pay off. I am very proud of all of these guys – they are fantastic role models.”